They would jump to it then, that, somehow, Erika had succeeded in escaping during the confusion resulting from the fire. But there would still be no reason to suspect that Gregory had played any part in her escape. It would be regarded as the spontaneous seizing of an opportunity, and thought that she was either seeking shelter at some neighbouring farm or hiding in the forest. In consequence, there seemed no reason at all why Grauber should take measures to have von Lottingen’s boathouse guarded.
But, once more, everything hung on the time factor. How long would it take them to break down the door of Erika’s dungeon? How long to get the bodies out of Helga’s still smouldering room? It should be an hour at least, probably two, perhaps even several. And there was always the chance that once both Erika and her charred body were found to be missing Grauber’s alert mind might jump to Gregory right out of the blue. Moreover, when the two remaining bodies were properly examined it would be found that the victims had not met their deaths through fire at all. The Gestapo man’s ankles had both been broken by bullets and his forehead smashed in; Helga’s spine was broken and the base of her skull shattered. Even the roasting of their bodies would not permanently conceal that. If Erika had managed to get hold of a gun, could she have succeeded in doing such deadly execution? On that count Grauber’s mind would jump to Gregory on a basis of reason. It seemed certain then that the moment it was discovered that Helga and the Gestapo man had met their deaths by shooting would also be the moment when the danger bell would ring for the escapers.
Knowing that, Gregory drove with the maximum speed that could possibly be combined with safety. His ribs pained him badly, but he was too elated by having Erika once more beside him to think much of his pain. Yet they spoke little. Without any explanations she guessed the terrible necessity for speed and, much as she longed to hear how he had succeeded in finding her, she knew that for both their sakes she must leave him to concentrate on his driving. Instead of saying anything she kept her hand on his leg, just above the knee, and, now and then, gave it a fond little squeeze.
It seemed to him, now that he had got her safely out of Niedertels, that the luck was running with him again. The feeling strengthened when they had got clear of Sigmaringen, which was the biggest town through which they had to pass, without being challenged; since the fact that they were using a stolen car was now their greatest danger.
But three miles outside the town, on rounding a bend, they suddenly came upon a farm wagon full of boisterously singing yokels. Drawn by two hefty, slow-moving horses in tandem, it occupied the middle of the road, and there seemed no possible way of avoiding it.
Only Gregory’s magnificent driving saved them from complete catastrophe. Braking fiercely, he skidded the car half off the road up on to a low bank. There was a loud bang and the car almost turned over; but it righted itself again, and ran back on to the road. With a sinking heart he brought it to a standstill a hundred yards further on. He knew only too well what that bang had meant. When skidding, he had burst one of his back tyres.
The farm cart too, had stopped; the singing ceased, the yokels climbed out and came straggling up the road towards them. Gregory was already out of the car and preparing to change the wheel. It emerged that the yokels were belatedly returning from a wedding party in the neighbourhood. Most of them were drunk but they willingly offered their help and, although it was rather doubtful if they really helped or hindered, the spare wheel was fixed with the minimum possible delay. With a wave of good-bye to their bibulous helpers Gregory and Erika drove on again, but the accident had cost them a precious quarter of an hour.
They passed through Herbertingen and Saulgau without event, and having accomplished four-fifths of their journey ran into Ravens-berg, but their run of bad luck had not ended. In the suburbs of the old town there lay a railway crossing and its gates were closed against them. Annoyed at this new delay, but unperturbed, Gregory pulled up, expecting that in a few moments a train would pass and that then the gates would be opened. Instead, four uniformed men ran out from the shadow of the gate-keeper’s lodge and jumped upon the running-boards of the car.
“Got you!” exclaimed a fat man who seemed to be in charge of the party.
“What the hell!” cried Gregory. “What the devil do you mean?”
“It’s a fair cop,” laughed the fat man. “You nearly ran down a wedding party some thirty miles further back, didn’t you?”
“Yes. What of it? No one was hurt.”
“Maybe not. But by a bit of luck the village policeman was in the party. He thought at the time the number on your car seemed somehow familiar, and when he got home he looked up his list of stolen cars. This Stutz was stolen in Stuttgart last night. He telephoned round for traps to be set for you and we’re the lucky lads to pull you in.”
While listening to him Erika felt as though she would sink through her seat with mortification and distress. To have survived so much only in the end to be caught through a village policeman was unutterably galling. But Gregory was now speaking again, coldly and angrily.
“This car was not stolen, Sergeant; it was commandeered. I am a Lieutenant-Colonel of the S.S. and I needed it for an affair of the greatest urgency.”
“What! With the lady?” The sergeant laughed. “You can tell that one to my officer. Come on! You’re going to drive us to the station.”
The fat man shouted to the signal-box, then climbed into the back of the car. One of his men got in with him, the other two remained on the running-board and hung on to the wings. The gates of the railway crossing swung open. Gregory realised that it was useless to argue further with the sergeant, and, having registered a most vigorous protest, drove on into the town under his direction.
On arriving at the police-station they were put into a small room while the sergeant went to report Gregory’s protest to the night duty officer. As the minutes ticked by they felt an increasing perturbation; yet they knew that the one thing they dared not do was to lose face, so Gregory began to call out, demanding attention.
The result was that a few minutes later they were taken into an inner office to confront an inspector. He was a lean, grey, tired-looking man.
“What is this story about your being an S.S. officer?” he asked at once. “Have you your papers to prove that?”
Gregory bowed from the waist, snapped, “Einholtz,” and producing the dead Gestapo man’s pass, laid it firmly on the desk in front of the inspector.
He looked at it for a moment, then handed it back, remarking quietly: “That’s all in order. But you will agree that one does not often see S.S. officers out of uniform, and, beyond question, the car you are using was taken without any legal authority.”
“The S.S. does not need legal authority.”
“Still, I require further proof of your identity before I can consider letting you go.”
Pulling Einholtz’s letters and bills from his pocket, Gregory flung them on the desk with an angry gesture:
“All right! Look at those, and if your curiosity carries you so far, read them. But I warn you that you are exceeding your authority. I am an officer of Gestapo Department U.A-I, and many of my duties have to be carried out in plain clothes. I have shown you my pass, and that should be sufficient.”
The inspector glanced at the superscriptions of the letters then handed them back. “Those appear all right, too,” he said, “but, like the car, the whole lot may have been stolen. I propose to detain you.”
“You! Detain me?” Gregory thundered. “By God, if you do that will be the end of you! Can’t you get it into your thick skull that I am on an urgent mission? If you don’t believe me, ring up my chief, Herr Gruppenführer Grauber!”
It was the supreme bluff, and Gregory gambled everything upon it. If it worked they would be freed. If it did not and the inspector put a long-distance call through to Berlin that would avail the prisoners nothing, as the Alexanderplatz would inform him that the Gruppenführer was at Schloss Niederfels. Another call would be m
ade and within an hour or so Grauber would arrive in triumph to collect them.
Gregory was banking entirely on the fact that, at heart, all German officials are bullies, and when they get up against a bigger bully they invariably cave in. Yet every nerve in his brain was alive with apprehension as he waited to see the inspector’s reactions.
After a second he saw him blanch slightly. The dread name of Grauber had rung a bell with the inspector. Like all civil police officers, he loathed the privileged S.S., yet went in fear of them. He was old enough to remember another, freer, Germany of the Kaiser’s day. He had had to join the Nazi Party to keep his job, but he was old-fashioned and did not like their methods. Now that Hitler had gone to war with Russia, he secretly believed that the Nazis were leading Germany to destruction. But they were still the masters, and their power was absolute. If the man before him was a car thief he would be caught again, sooner or later. If he was, as he declared, a Lieutenant-Colonel of the S.S., detaining him might lead to the officer responsible losing not only his job but his pension. On long-distance calls there were often considerable delays. It might take an hour or more to get through to Berlin; and if the Colonel was on an urgent mission such a delay might cause its failure. Then there would be hell to pay. No, obviously, the risk was not worth it.
“All right,” he said, after a moment, “I must accept your word, Herr Oberstleutnant. The car is still outside. You are free to go.”
“Ich danke Ihnen,” replied Gregory frigidly. With a stiff bow he stalked arrogantly from the room, leaving Erika to tail along behind him.
As they drove down the street in the car they both let go a heavy sigh, and smiled at each other in the darkness.
“Heavens! That was a near thing,” Erika murmured.
“It certainly was,” he agreed. “And even though we got out of it, the car number being spotted by that blasted village constable has cost us half an hour of our invaluable time.”
The last lap, from Ravensburg to the lake, was a matter of only fifteen miles. After turning into the lakeside road they drove along it for a little way; then Gregory ran the car through an open gate, into a field, and they got out. He looked at his watch and saw that it was a quarter to three.
Instead of the journey taking two hours, the burst tyre and their temporary arrest had caused it to take two and three-quarters. However, the moon was not due to rise until a little before dawn, so they still had several hours of darkness before them. There remained the awful question as to how long it would take Grauber to get the fire under and make damning deductions from the charred bodies. If he had managed to do so already the boathouse at von Lottingen’s would now be surrounded and prove another trap, but Gregory still felt that it would be well on towards morning before the fiery furnace he had created in Helga’s room would be cool enough for anyone to enter it. So, in good heart, they set off on foot to cover the last third of a mile to von Lottingen’s.
The injury to Gregory’s ribs had made his breathing painful for the last three hours, and now that he was walking the pain became considerably greater. Yet the imperative necessity for keeping his wits about him helped to take his mind off it.
As they approached the Villa they began to go forward very cautiously, but the road was entirely deserted, and for the last hundred yards a tall hedge gave them excellent cover. When they reached the gate they waited beside it for a moment, listening for any sounds that might give them warning if an ambush had been laid. It was very cold. Erika shivered slightly and drew her fur coat more closely about her. Gregory took a step forward, and, raising himself a little from a crouching position, peered between the ornamental wooden bars in the upper part of the gate. No lights showed in the house and there was no sign of movement among the deep banks of shadows in the garden. With his gun ready in his hand he lifted the latch of the gate and opened it a little. Slipping inside, they closed it after them.
Side by side they stole down the garden path to the garage. Before passing round its corner they paused and listened again. They could now hear the lapping of the water across which lay life, freedom and happiness, but no other sound disturbed the stillness. Again they advanced, like two silent shadows.
As they neared the boathouse Erika could feel her heart beating wildly, and her scalp began to prickle. The summer night, now months ago, when she had crept down that path, was still vivid in her memory. Although she had not yet reached it she could already see in her mind the darkened interior of the big shed, and feel again the brutal kicks and blows that she had received there.
Motioning her to stay still, Gregory covered the last few paces to the door. Opening it gently he stood a little aside, thrust in his torch and flicked it on for a second. The eerie stillness remained unbroken. He flashed the torch again and shone it round, although, as only his extended hand was behind it, he could not yet see inside. The ruse brought no shot or sound of movement, and a great surge of hope lifted his heart. If Grauber’s men were lurking there it seemed certain that at the sight of the light they would have sprung into action.
“I think it’s all right,” he whispered, and stepping from behind the door he walked softly through it.
With her pistol held ready in her hand, Erika followed him in. He flashed his torch again, and shone it round. His heart seemed to sink right into his stomach and she smothered a little cry of dismay. The boathouse contained no ambush; no enemies were waiting there to spring upon them. The place was entirely empty; but all the boats had been taken away.
For a moment they stood there, stunned by this terrible misfortune; but Gregory guessed at once what had happened. The one link in his plan which he had always known to be weak had given way. During the previous day the launch from the Villa Offenbach had been discovered there. Whoever occupied von Lottingen’s house had become suspicious that the launch was being used for some illegal purpose; and, in order that the user might not reclaim it, or take one of the others, without going to the house to give an explanation of what he was up to, had removed them all.
Gregory took Erika’s arm and squeezed it. “Cheer up,” he said. “This is a bad break, but at least Grauber can’t have guessed yet that we’re together, and trying to get back to Switzerland; otherwise the place would have been full of his people. We’ll get a boat somehow.”
“But how, darling?” Erika tried to keep the despondency she was feeling out of her voice.
“We’ll go along the road to the next villa and try there. All these places on the lake shore have boathouses.”
Still treading gently, they left the boathouse and made their way back up the garden path to the gate. At the very moment that they reached it a voice rang out from behind them:
“Stay where you are, or I shoot!”
Erika swung round and saw that in the porch of the house there were now several dim figures.
Gregory grabbed her arm and dived for the gate. He had scarcely pulled her with him one step towards it when the gate was flung open, and they found themselves facing another squad of men who covered them with sub-machine guns.
A whistle blew, and at its shrill blast pandemonium broke loose. Lights were switched on in the villa. Torches were flashed in their eyes, motor engines roared up the road; some of the men in front of them sprang forward, others from the Villa came dashing at them from their rear.
The first vehicle to arrive was a lorry, on which was mounted a searchlight. Its powerful beam lit the small garden with a blinding glare. Three cars drove up and squads of men tumbled out of them. But before they could even reach the gate Gregory and Erika had been surrounded, seized, and disarmed.
Against such numbers any attempt to put up a fight would have been utterly hopeless; but as, still half-blinded, Gregory gazed around he felt that, to ensure his capture, his enemy had paid him a remarkable tribute. The place was now swarming with Gestapo men, and the arms they carried were sufficient for them to have taken on a whole platoon of soldiers. It looked as if the entire S.S. Headquarters of F
riedrichshafen had been called out to participate in this snaring of one man and a girl.
Such a force could not, he knew, have been concentrated there through the simple finding of the launch, or even the discovery of Einholtz’s murder and the connecting of the launch with it. Such excessive precautions against their getting away could only have been ordered by Gruppenführer Grauber. It seemed certain now that he had got the fire under fairly quickly and telephoned through at once.
Gregory did not think there could have been much of a margin, and supposed that the arrangements for the ambush had probably still been incomplete when he and Erika had first entered the garden; the finishing touches had, no doubt, been added while they were down at the boathouse. Still, it didn’t matter now how the trap had been prepared. The grim fact was that it had worked; they were caught, and Grauber would be arriving on the scene to claim them in something less than two hours’ time.
Those were the thoughts that spun through his mind as he and Erika were hustled towards the Villa. They entered its small, rather ugly hall and an S.S. officer waved a hand for them to pass on into a room on the left. As Gregory stepped through its doorway he came to an abrupt halt, and gasped with amazement.
There, beyond a small dining-table, with one of his heavy jowled adjutants behind him, stood Grauber himself.
As the door closed behind them Grauber surveyed his prisoners with his solitary baleful eye.
“So we’ve got you at last,” he piped.
“Yes, you’ve got us,” Gregory agreed in a tired voice. The hurly-burly of the last few moments had temporarily taken his mind off the ache in his ribs, but it was now gnawing at him again. “Still,” he added, “I’d be interested to learn how you did it. Or, rather, how you managed to get here ahead of us?”
Come into my Parlour Page 50
